The Derring-Do Club and the Year of the Chrononauts (3 page)

He dug in his pocket for something, something flat and white, and at any moment he would drop to one knee and present a ring, but instead he thrust an envelope into her hands.

She fumbled with it and, finally, she felt an emotion.

“One cannot accept this,” she stated.

“Why ever not?”

“We don’t live on charity.”

“It’s not charity.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s a letter of introduction for employment.”

“Employment!”

“Yes.”

“I’m not a domestic.”

“No, please… may I start again?”

“If you please – directly.”

“Major Dan and I thought, well, your situation prompted us to consider you, and, of course, your sterling service to Her Majesty and the Empire, which must remain secret, so then the secrecy is a qualification. Don’t you see?”

“I’m afraid not, you are being obscure.”

“It’s an administrative position at the Patents Pending Office.”

“Patents…”

“Pending Office, yes. On Queensbury Road, it’s impossible to miss,” Caruthers explained. “You need simply go and announce yourself.”

“I see.”

“That’s a letter of introduction from Major Dan.”

Earnestine smoothed out the envelope. It bore a single letter: ‘B’.

“I’ll give it some thought,” she said.

“Do,” said Caruthers, and then he paused with casual carelessness. “You’d be doing us a great service, of course, and we all have our duties.”

He smiled.

Earnestine nodded: she knew when she’d been gulled.

Mrs Arthur Merryweather

The evening had gone so quickly, and for Georgina it had been fleeting and ephemeral. She had laughed, and sung, and actually enjoyed herself. The entertainment had been jolly and diverting certainly, but to have heard from Arthur again had been a true wonder. However, each step now seemed to take her further away from his kindly visitation. Despite the jostling crowd, she felt alone once more.

The show was over.

She missed Arthur. She wanted to check his watch again, to hold that connection with him a little longer, but the crowd bumped into her too many times and she feared dropping it. She’d been without him longer than they’d been together, but time didn’t seem to make a difference. He was an ever–present gap next to her.

Outside the theatre, there was the usual bustle and noise. The street was lit by the garish glow of many gas lamps, those of the theatre glaring up at posters of entertainment and advertisement, while the street lamps blazed upon their wrought iron posts. Women sold matches or posies of flowers, boys ran hither and thither with messages and hawkers plied their wares. A Peeler shooed away a beggar. Newspaper men shouted the headlines and waved copies of the evening editions aloft.

“Another disappearance, another disappearance…” they hollered: there being only one story of the day.

That’s what she wanted: to disappear, to get away from all the fuss, and well–meaning tea, sympathy and cake. She wanted to be left alone and yet at the same time she wanted to hold on to what she had left. She knew it wasn’t the world that was slipping away from her, but she herself who was drifting.

In her bag was a letter, an official document that she had so often hidden, put aside and distracted herself from, so that it had begun to dominate her every thought. Such was its influence that she had got out her luggage and put away her luggage so many times. She’d even taken down her Bradshaw to look up the train times.

Caruthers appeared with an arm to guide her to a quieter area by some stone steps, but even here it was busy.

“Erm…” he said.

A gentleman vendor approached to suggest that they have their picture taken as a souvenir.

Caruthers sidled away leaving Georgina with an opportunity to examine the photographic apparatus, lifting her dark veil to do so. Perched atop a tripod was a teak box. A glass lens protruded from the front held in a brass fitting and at the back, under a cloth, was the bellows used for focussing the inverted image. The man carefully explained the magic of photography and the alchemy of the enchanted plate, while Georgina patiently nodded and examined the ingenious way the silver–coated, copper daguerreotype plate was inserted. She’d read about it and seen figures from ‘a’ to ‘g’, but it was fascinating to see one in reality.

The man came to his conclusion: “…and I hide beneath this cloth to perform the conjuring trick.”

“I see you are still using the collodion wet plate process,” Georgina said sweetly. “I would have thought that the gelatine dry plate would be preferable.”

“This is an excellent apparatus and works perfectly satisfactorily.”

“But aren’t silver halides more sensitive and thus reduce the required exposure time?”

“I have magnesium powder,” he said.

The explosive powder of magnesium and potassium chlorate was ready loaded in a metal flash lamp, the dry cells ready to deliver the galvanic ignition charge.

“Gina!”

It was Earnestine, standing between Captain Caruthers and Lieutenant McKendry, and jerking her hand to call her over. Her place was on the lower step between Uncle Jeremiah and Charlotte, so when she joined them, Georgina felt comforted, surrounded as she was. Perhaps, she thought, she should leave a gap to her right, a space for Arthur. She felt like moving away from Uncle Jeremiah to do so.

Charlotte nudged her.

“Lottie, don’t crowd so,” Georgina said.

Charlotte answered back: “The man says we should move together.”

The photographer seemed like a headless monster as he bent down and buried his head under the cloth hood. His arms stuck out and he waved the group together.

They bunched up.

With a shock, Georgina realised that her mourning veil was still raised. She should move it down, but it was too late: the man held the flash upright and lit the magnesium: it burned, crackling loudly and was painfully bright.

“Don’t move!” Earnestine commanded in a voice that had clearly been forced between stiff lips.

Georgina gripped Charlotte’s hand to avoid any fidgets.

As she felt the others come to attention, she stood erect and proper too, but in the moment of stillness she shivered. It was as if they were all being watched; she fought the impulse to glance around. As the moment stretched, she had a premonition that everything was passing over, disappearing as if the camera wasn’t saving the moment, but stealing it away. She held on tight, hoping she could preserve something.

A man walked behind them, but she knew that he would be smeared away by the long exposure.

She thought about the letter in her bag.

The light died away and the man slotted the covering plates into the camera. They could move again.

It was done, the image fixed forever. Or so it seemed to Georgina then.

Miss Charlotte

“Ow!”

Charlotte pulled her hand away from Georgina’s clutches, clenched and opened a fist to restore her circulation. Georgina, honestly, she was becoming far too controlling. It used to be Gina and Lottie against Earnestine, but now Georgina was that tiny bit older, it was Earnestine and Georgina ganging up on ‘little Lottie’. So unfair.

Earnestine came over, looking all stern and adult.

“Charlotte.”

“Yes, Ness.”

“Come along here,” said Earnestine, “where the others can’t hear us.”

They moved away, off the steps along the theatre front, until they were a good few yards away.

“Is it a secret?” Charlotte asked, excited.

“You are going to have to get married.”

“What!” – this was all too sudden – “But I’m only fifteen, barely fifteen.”

“Yes, clearly you have been slacking these last few years. We need to choose someone eligible, not too old, and with a dependable income, something from land.”

“I don’t want to get married.”

“Nonsense. And you are far too young to know what you want. Women have a choice between being an Angel of the Home or a Fallen Women. You don’t want to be a fallen woman now, do you?”

“Maybe I do?”

“Don’t be foolish. You don’t know what one is, so how can you have an opinion either way.”

“You’re not married,” Charlotte countered. “Does that make you a fallen woman?”

“Don’t be impertinent.”

“I wouldn’t mind a Captain like Car–”

“He has frayed cuffs and therefore no money. We need to find an Earl or a Lord or a Lancashire industrialist.”

“But they’re all fat and ninety!”

Earnestine gave Charlotte a glare: “You may tell them you are a Deering–Dolittle, but on no account mention that we are the branch from Kent.”

“Our branch saved the Empire.”

“Which hardly engenders a reputation as respectable stay–at–home young ladies.”

Charlotte wondered how Earnestine could go on about respectable stay–at–home young ladies when she was being utterly horrid: “Stay at home!?”

“Don’t whine,” Earnestine chided. “You’re becoming as bad as Georgina before she was married.”

“But she’s ill now. She throws up every morning. I don’t want to catch Wife Ague.”

“There’s no such thing, and she does it discreetly, whereas… from now on, you must be seen and not heard, Charlotte.”

“But I’m not a child.”

“You were complaining earlier that you were too young,” Earnestine pointed out. “A child must be quiet, whereas a young lady looking for a husband must be
silent
.”

Charlotte went silent, but out of shock.

“So it’s decided,” Earnestine said, summing up. “A husband.”

Earnestine turned away, and Charlotte saw her dictatorial outline, her hawk–like nose and her pointy witch’s chin.

That was it then, Charlotte realised; they’d been planning behind her back to farm her off to some old fuddy–duddy. Well, she’d have none of it. First chance she got she’d talk to Uncle Jeremiah: he always understood her, and he’d invite her in to his drawing room, where he always had macaroons in a tin.

Earnestine and Georgina were talking to Caruthers and McKendry. She could hear them comparing this act with the other, preferring the magician or the dancers, and they were all just stupid, because obviously the military brass band had been the best.

Charlotte took a few steps down until she was on street level, wanting to get as far away from Earnestine as possible.

There was still a multitude of finely dressed theatre goers thronging the pavement. The near constant street hawkers and beggars had been pushed aside. Carriages and hansoms came up to collect passengers, but with much trouble as one vehicle remained resolutely parked at the kerb. Its blinds were drawn up, but the inside was dark, a black like pitch or treacle, except for a single, glowing red ember. Smoke drifted out as the occupant exhaled.

Charlotte was drawn closer and closer, a step at a time, curious to see who waited within.

A hand stopped her.

A man had stepped in front. He had a broken nose, tilted to the left, and pugnacious eyes beneath an eyebrow split with scars. Perhaps, Charlotte thought, he was completely bald for, unusually, he had no moustache and he was hairless from the rim of his bowler down.

He’d broken the spell: the bustle of the street crowded in on her like the school bell fills the corridors with commotion.

“Excuse me, Miss,” he said, sternly in that self–important manner that only butlers or batmen seemed to possess. “That’s far enough.”

“Oh, I just…” but Charlotte couldn’t think of an excuse. Usually, when she was breaking some school rule or other, she had one prepared.

“Jones!” The voice, a woman’s, came from the dark interior of the carriage. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know, Ma’am.”

The embers waved imperiously casting tiny sparks of glowing ash to the breeze.

The man, Jones, turned to Charlotte: “Who are you?”

“Miss Charlotte Deering–Dolittle, if you please,” said Charlotte and she bobbed a curtsey.

A hint of a face shimmered in the evening gas light as the woman leant forward. Charlotte picked out an imperious outline, a regal nose and an elegant chin, a face she felt she had seen before, but couldn’t place.

“Little Lottie?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, well…” the woman sat back, so that her deep chuckling came from the darkness itself.

“Ma’am,” said Charlotte, “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Charlotte looked at the servant, but he said nothing.

“Charlotte,” said the darkness. “I am Mrs Frasier.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs Frasier,” said Charlotte politely. “May I ask–”

“Charlotte! Charlotte!” It was Earnestine shouting out from the theatre steps. “Where are you?”

Two sharp raps sounded on the ceiling of the carriage: “Driver!” Mrs Frasier commanded.

The driver whipped the horse and the carriage jerked out into the traffic. The man Jones ran, caught a handle and pulled himself up to sit beside the driver.

Charlotte was pulled around by a grip on her elbow.

It was Earnestine: “Where have you been?”

“Here.”

“Don’t wander off.”

“I didn’t.”

“Who was that?”

Charlotte looked out into the street, but couldn’t tell which distant carriage had been the strange woman’s.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Some lady called Mrs Frasier.”

Chapter II

Miss Deering-Dolittle

How time flew!

Almost a month later and on a Monday morning, Earnestine set off to walk to Queensbury Road. It was a fair distance, but it was a lovely morning, sunny, though chill. A few young ladies shot past her on their bicycles, and a chimney sweep and his lad made rude noises. Earnestine ignored them.

A newspaper vendor shouted and waved his wares: “Temporal Peelers! Temporal Peelers! More arrests.”

It was the News of the World, so Earnestine declined.

She stopped briefly at the book shop on the corner. She saw herself hovering ghost–like in the reflection of the street before she focused through the glass to see the atlases, expedition journals and biographies of great explorers. She could go in, she thought, she had plenty of time, but common sense prevailed. Once she was in the shop, she knew, an hour or two could easily fly by. She walked on as she wanted to be early.